Connecting Italy’s largest photovoltaic plant to the grid: Kiwa's role in the Fenix Solar Project
The push for renewable energy is becoming more important than ever. One growing source of clean power is photovoltaics, a form of solar generation that converts light into electricity. An example of this progress is the Fenix Project: a vast photovoltaic plant in Sicily, Italy, developed by Iberdrola Italia, and the largest of its kind currently in operation in the country. Once fully operational, it will provide energy to more than 140,000 homes and cut 119,000 tons of CO₂ per year, which is the equivalent of taking around 25,000 cars off the road permanently.
Getting all that electricity to the people who need it is a challenge in itself: it all has to be safely connected to the homes and businesses depending on it. That is where Kiwa plays a central role, carrying out high-voltage A18 grid connection testing and validation. In this article, Luca Votta, Global Business Sector Leader Energy Transition at Kiwa, and Alessandro Zuccato, Director Electrical Products at Kiwa Italia, share insights into the project, the challenges involved, and what it means for the future of large-scale solar.
Powering thousands of homes, safely
The Fenix plant includes more than 400,000 solar panels and the capacity to generate 400 GWh of electricity per year, making it the largest photovoltaic plant in operation in Italy today. "When you translate those numbers into real impact, it becomes very tangible," says Luca. "We are talking about powering hundreds of thousands of homes with clean energy and significantly cutting the CO₂ emissions that are warming our planet."
The Fenix project is one of the most important renewable energy initiatives in Italy. But it is not only about generating electricity. It is about getting large volumes of clean power safely from a field in Sicily to the grid that carries it to people's homes.
That last step is where things get complicated. Generating electricity is one thing; feeding it reliably into a national grid shared by millions of users is another. A large power plant does not simply pour electricity into the system. It has to work with the grid in real time, adjusting its output as demand rises and falls, helping to keep voltage stable, and responding correctly if something goes wrong elsewhere on the network. If it does not, the consequences can range from local outages to damage to the equipment in people's homes.
"Grid connection testing is often less visible than the solar panels themselves, but it is the step that determines whether all that clean energy actually reaches anyone," says Alessandro. "Kiwa's role is to make sure the plant and the grid can work together safely and reliably, from day one."
Before a large power plant can be switched on, it must pass strict technical tests set by the national Transmission System Operator. In Italy, that is TERNA, the body responsible for keeping the country's electricity network running. These tests confirm that the plant responds correctly when grid frequency shifts, keeps voltage stable through what engineers call reactive power control, stays connected and behaves predictably during faults elsewhere on the network, and can be managed remotely by grid operators in real time. Kiwa carries out those tests independently, on site, under real operating conditions.
"These are not theoretical checks," says Alessandro. "We are there on the ground, measuring how the plant actually performs. Kiwa operates in the gap between generation and grid integration, giving everyone involved the confidence that this plant is ready to operate."
An energy ecosystem in transition
Connecting new plants to the grid has become one of the biggest challenges in European renewable energy right now. Projects representing around 1,700 GW of capacity across 16 European countries were stuck in grid connection queues in 2024 alone: delays that leave clean energy sitting idle while homes and businesses keep relying on fossil fuels.
"The pace of new solar and wind development has outrun the grid's ability to absorb it, and the technical requirements have become more demanding at the same time," says Luca. "But there is a growing awareness that getting grid compliance right early, before construction is finished rather than after, can cut months off the connection process. That is what we are here for."
In Italy alone, solar capacity has grown from around 22 GW in 2021 to an estimated 38 GW by the end of 2025, with a government target of 79 GW by 2030. Every gigawatt of that has to be connected safely. For developers who get it wrong, the cost is not just financial, it is clean energy delayed and CO2 emissions that could have been avoided.
Solar is one of the most vital tools we have for addressing climate change. We believe it will continue to grow as a central pillar of the future energy system. The challenge now is not whether solar technology works. It is how to make solar projects reliable, grid-ready, and bankable; safe enough and stable enough that the clean energy they generate can genuinely be counted on.
One approach that is gaining ground is the use of digital simulations, sometimes called digital twins, where engineers build a detailed virtual model of a plant before it is physically complete. Rather than discovering problems during commissioning, developers can identify and fix grid connection issues at the design stage. It reflects a broader change in how the industry operates: from reacting to what has already been built to getting ahead of problems early.
Feeling part of something bigger
Working at this scale brings its own pressures. "The Fenix plant is not a single system," says Alessandro. "It is dozens of subsystems: panels, inverters, transformers, control layers, all of which have to interact with the high-voltage grid at the same time. Ensuring that everything behaves coherently required close coordination and very precise testing. At this level, even a small deviation can have consequences that ripple across the network.”
The most intense moments came during live testing: all systems running, all parties watching in real time, every result recorded. “You are working side by side with the client’s engineers, with the grid operator’s team, with specialists on site,” says Luca. “Everything has to be right. And when it is, when you see the data confirm that this enormous plant is ready to deliver clean power safely to the grid, you feel it. You are part of something that matters, both to the people on site and the hundreds of thousands of households who will use that electricity, as well as the planet we are trying to protect.”
Delivered through collaboration
That sense of shared purpose ran through the collaboration with Iberdrola Italia too. “What worked particularly well was the regular on-site presence of their staff,” says Alessandro. “In projects of this scale, network code testing requires real-time decisions. You cannot do that at a distance. The constant communication between our team, Iberdrola Italia’s engineers, and TERNA made the difference.”
It added up to something more than a technical exercise. A developer, a testing partner, and a grid operator all working toward the same outcome: clean energy delivered safely to the people who need it.
More than just a project completed
For both Luca and Alessandro, the Fenix project means more than just another project completed. "Every test we perform contributes to enabling clean energy to enter the grid safely," says Luca. "When you think about what that means, the CO2 not emitted, the dependence on fossil fuels reduced, the world a little cleaner for our children and grandchildren, the technical work takes on a completely different weight."
"There is a strong sense of responsibility in what we do," adds Alessandro. "We are not just verifying compliance. We are actively enabling the energy transition. We are very proud of it."
The Fenix project shows that renewable energy at this scale can be implemented successfully: carefully designed, rigorously tested, and safely connected to the millions of people who depend on the grid every day. For developers and investors planning their next large-scale solar project, the lesson is clear. Grid compliance is not the final hurdle. It’s something to get right from the start so we can deliver the clean energy the world needs.
